


Beinahrúga: The Story of Leó Élson

by GhostlyWitchAvenger



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Art, Cover Art, Deviates From Canon, Injured Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Pre-Five Year Mission, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Slow Build, so AU it might as well be its own thing, there will be the occasional drawing for this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-04-23 15:52:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14335887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostlyWitchAvenger/pseuds/GhostlyWitchAvenger
Summary: How could a simple planet survey go so wrong and lead to so much?Beinahrúga (n.) - Old Norse meaning 'bones' (lit. heap of bones, bone heap)Additional warnings in notes





	1. Cover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art drawn by yours truly :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My art tumblr: phantombrushy.tumblr.com


	2. Chapter I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It probably wasn't a good idea to start writing this before I finished the synopsis, but oh well
> 
> Warnings: Blood, injury, whump

Leonard was no stranger to pain. Like most people, he’d experienced it throughout his entire life in random intervals. At age three, he got a splinter under his nail when he helped his ma carry firewood into the farm. At age seven, he broke his nose standing under the hoop while playing basketball with the neighbourhood kids, blood gushing from his nostrils and staining his shirt. On his ninth birthday, he snapped his arm clean in half after falling from the tree in his backyard. When he was thirteen, he got stung by a bumblebee and discovered his one and only life-threatening allergy. The list goes on, and only increased in number after he joined the  _ Enterprise _ , the ‘Fleets strongest trouble magnet.

_ “What's going on over there?!” _

_ “We need to get out of this storm, lieutenant!” _

_ “Systems are offline! I've lost both engines!” _

_ “Everybody, hold on!” _

_ “Bones!” _

But this? 

This really took the cake.

Tears stung at the fine cuts on his cheeks as the taste of copper danced across his tongue, trying desperately to keep his screams inside. His broken leg was uncomfortably tucked under himself, a result of his desperate attempt to hide under the roots of the strange tree above him. Leonard didn’t dare move, though.

Everyone else was dead. He'd seen their charred corpses, and Miller hadn't lasted long after waking. Only an hour had passed since the crash, and still he could hear her fading screams in his mind as something had grabbed her by the leg and dragged her to parts unknown. He hadn’t gotten a good look at it, but managed to catch a glimpse of pale skin and a humanoid form before he hurriedly crawled away to relative safety.

The only thing he could be grateful for in this moment was that no one he knew had been on that shuttle. To imagine if Jim or Spock had been on board… or even sweet little Pavel, who would have been if he hadn't come down with the flu that morning and Leonard had offered to take his place.

A morbid and rather selfish thought - because who was he to decide who should live or die? - but true nonetheless.  _ Does Khan ring a bell? _ It was a miracle he was even able to make it out alive.

How long  _ that _ would last was anyone's guess.

Just beyond the gnarled wood, he could hear whatever creature haunted these lands gnawing at human flesh, the grotesque sounds of wet breathing and tearing meat nauseatingly loud. The torrent of rain and hail did nothing to mute it. Somewhere further away, the wreckage of the shuttle creaked and groaned in the heat of the flames. To think that if he had lingered in there any longer, he would be dead, just like the others.

_ Oh god…  _

He could feel the fear pumping through his veins like lava, making it difficult to breathe evenly and to keep a steady hand on the wound in his side, hot blood slipping past his fingers despite his best efforts. He wasn’t sure how he had gotten it, but it must have happened between when he had blacked out and when he awoke in the smoke-filled cabin of the shuttle.

Chin trembling, Leonard buried his face into the cold, damp soil beneath him, shutting his eyes against it all.

_ It was just supposed to be a survey mission... _

Another creature must have joined the first, because he could hear them fighting over the mutilated and burned corpse, teeth snapping and growls rumbling deep in their chests. If they didn’t leave or if he didn’t find a way to sneak away soon, they’d likely catch scent of his blood and track him to this cramped alcove. Trembling, from both the cold and the fear, he prayed.

Leonard wasn’t a religious man by any means, and he never had been. But, in this desperate moment, he’d take anything he could get. He mouthed his pleas against the dirt, uncaring of the earthy taste as he silently called for any divine assistance. For whoever was listening to just please, _please,_ _let him survive this day._

Another hour passed. An hour that felt like an eternity.

With the medkit and communicators turning to ashes and molten pieces of metal in the fire and the creatures still lingering merely metres away, any hope of him getting out of this alive shrivelled away as the minutes ticked by. The doctor in him understood what was happening when it became difficult to breathe and he started to sweat despite the freezing weather. His heart pounded in his chest and his vision was starting to tunnel.

He was dying.

“'m sorry, Jim,” The whisper was soft, and full of regret. Regret for going on the mission. Regret for not making it back alive. Regret for not trying harder to see Joanna before he left. For everything.

The storm that had brought the shuttle down buffeted against the roots sheltering him. He could still recall the panic in Jim’s voice when their transportation had first jerked in the winds, sending Leonard to the floor and forcing a lieutenant’s head against the metal wall. His captain had been shouting orders to both themselves and the crew back on the  _ Enterprise _ , urging Scotty to ‘hurry, they don’t have much time!’. The sight of his wide, baby blues and the sound of his anguished cry of ‘Bones!’ cutting off so harshly would forever be burned into Leonard’s brain, if he lived past this moment.

He was beginning to doubt that as he coughed, water filling the alcove from the torrential downpour.

There was a voice, on the edges of his hearing. It sounded muffled and far away, and he didn't understand what they were saying, but that may have been the blood loss. Or the cold. It didn't matter. He was too tired to open his eyes or turn his head, even when he thought he could feel a hand on his shoulder.

Perhaps his oxygen-deprived brain was conjuring these things to comfort him in these last moments. Because who wanted to die alone, away from everything they had ever known? So, gentle hands that rolled him onto his back and brushed his soaked hair out of his face was a good way to go, right?

But it began to feel more real when they pulled him out of hiding, his wounds flaring with pain. Leonard's eyes fluttered against the rain that pelted his upturned face, weakly grasping at the arms hooked under his own. Gasps left his chapped lips as he tried to breathe through it all, “Who…” There was shouting now, distinctly human and in a language he couldn't decipher, “Who are you?”

The person - who looked much like a human male - tugging him along through the mud with quiet grunts looked down at him with kind eyes. A stream of almost nonsensical words left his lips, but he gave him a comforting smile. He hushed him when Leonard cried out, lifting him onto an animal that looked like a horse and into the arms of another man.

Whoever it was, he took care to wrap his arms around his trembling form, avoiding the gaping wound in his side. This man looked important -  _ a captain like Jim, maybe? _ \- with the gold band wrapped around his forehead, red, coarse hair falling from its short braid. With a shout, he urged the horse into a sprint, each hoofbeat sending another wave of agony through his body.

Leonard might've started sobbing, given that the man holding him tightly kept muttering what seemed to be words of comfort into his ear, voice soft and soothing. But everything passed through a haze. The strange trees with deep purple leaves were blurs to him, and the cold rain and hail hitting his skin started to feel warm against his already freezing skin. He couldn't feel his hands or feet, and the kind man's green eyes, staring so resolutely ahead, started to fade to grey. 

“I don’...” Eyes rolled around in his sockets. Already, he could feel himself fading. An eternity ago he had wanted to live. But now he was just so  _ tired. _ The kind stranger shook him awake when his eyes started to slip shut, panic seeping into his voice, “I don’ think I’m gonna make it.” It didn’t matter that these people couldn’t understand him, this bloody, filthy, sobbing excuse of a man that he was. He had to tell them. Let them know this was some useless venture. Others flanked them on their own steeds, their long, braided hair whipping their faces in the stormy gales. They glanced at him nervously, stress and fear clear in the furrow of their brows. Fear of him? Or fear  _ for  _ him?

The party finally entered a modest village, something Leonard didn’t notice until they all skidded to a stop in front of a wooden hut, throwing mud into the air and splattering those unfortunate enough to be standing nearby.

Now that Leonard was able to get a good look at everything, despite his fading consciousness, he was starting to think that maybe he  _ was _ imagining all of this. These people looked too human to be the inhabitants of this planet.  _ What was it called again? _ Oskon was a planet in an area of space that was known to house more of the less humanoid species. So to see these people, donned in clothing that reminded him much of Earth’s old Viking ages, had him believing he was still hiding in that alcove, out of sight from those terrible creatures and suffering hallucinations. Or maybe this was all some terribly lucid nightmare, and he’d wake covered in sweat and shaking from imaginary pain. He’d get up, get to the mess, eat breakfast with Jim, head down to Sickbay, and pretend all of this didn’t-.

There was more shouting as he was suddenly pulled from the horse, and he blacked out for the briefest of seconds. Enough time for them to drag him into the hut and deposit him onto a dry cot, it would seem, as he woke again to see a panicked woman hovering over him, her blonde hair -  _ blonde like Jim’s _ \- brushing his face as she cut away at his clothing. There might’ve been a fire crackling nearby, if the heat seeping into his bones was any indication. That was negligible in the face of the searing pain that rushed through him when calloused hands pressed a rolled cloth to his side, soaked in some kind of disinfectant.

The man that was on the horse was there too, hushing him and holding his shoulders down as he struggled. Distantly, what little shred of coherency he had left knew that what they were doing was necessary. But it  _ hurt _ , “Please!” He was probably screaming. He couldn’t tell, but it felt like he was, “Please, stop! It hurts!”

They ignored him as the woman, whose sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, rubbed a paste into the flesh surrounding the open wound. The effect was almost immediate, and the skin went numb. Whatever language these people spoke flew hurried between the healer and the stranger still holding his shoulders down, a certain urgency in their tones that reminded Leonard of his days as a trauma surgeon.

She grabbed a needle and thread from somewhere by her feet, and the sight of it made Leonard buck harder. He’d heard horror stories about how trauma care had been centuries ago, especially when there was no access to an effective anaesthetic. Thankfully such treatment was obsolete in the Federation, but of all the things he had learned about in his medical history course, the idea of feeling every suture had been something that Leonard had hoped he would never have had to experience.

Turned out it was going to happen today, regardless of what he wanted.

“Stay ‘way from me with that thing!” His words came out as slurred mess, but he was still able to kick out at the other men holding his legs down, his breath coming out in short, harsh pants when his broken leg reminded him it existed. The healer gestured violently to a shaking man in the corner of the room, who, if they aged like humans, looked no older than fifteen. He scrambled to grab for a leather pouch of some sort, nearly tripping over himself to get it to the woman, who ripped it from his hands and poured a copious amount on a clean rag. 

The healer pressed the rag gently to his mouth and nose, a strong, almost sweet smell assaulting his senses. Her lips formed words he couldn’t hear, but her bloodied fingers ran through his hair, guiding him down into a deep state of sleep where he would no longer feel pain.

And he didn’t fight it.


	3. Update!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a new chapter, unfortunately!

Thank you guys so much for the comments and support!

I am still working on this fic, do not worry!

However, I am most successful with actually finishing my fics when I write most - if not all - of it first before posting.

This is mainly because I am not only a fanfic writer, but I'm also an artist and a student in college. Alongside my coursework, I'm full of ideas that never leave me alone, and that leaves me spread thin between everything.

So to ensure that I don't end up abandoning these ideas of mine, I'm going to try and write my fics in their entirety before sharing them with you.

I don't know when that will be, but hopefully I'll have a modicum of success this summer and will post more regularly in several weeks.

Here's what my self-assigned schedule looks like, listed in order of when I estimate myself to finish these:

  * _Vengeance is Mine_
  * Rewrite of _When It's Time_
  * Sequel of _When It's_ Time, titled _All That's Left Behind_
  * Rewrite of _Stellar Abyss: Race to the End,_ and associated one-shots
  * _Beinahrúga_



This... Is a large load I've given myself, so hopefully I can get my butt into gear and get this done before life gets too busy for me. The reason why Beinahrúga is at the bottom of the list is because it has a lot of world building in it that I haven't quite finished yet and requires a lot of research, so I expect it to take the longest to write.

All other works that are unfinished and posted to my account are still up in the air, and probably will never have regular updates.

Again, thank you so much for your support and patience and hopefully there will be new content soon!


	4. Not A Chapter, Sorry!

Hey guys!

I wanted to drop in and say that _Beinahrúga_ is now being written as an original story. This was decision a long time in making and was finally cemented when I joined a high fantasy Discord to help me with my work.

The ideas I had for this story ended up deviating from canon so much that some minor changes would've made it its own thing, so that's what I did.

Thanks so much for the support on this work!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! This is a project I've been working on for a while that has a lot of world building, so I hope you guys like it


End file.
